


These Shadows We're Passing Through

by dreamlittleyo



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Coda, Domestic, Explicit Sexual Content, First Kiss, Kissing, M/M, Misunderstanding, Post-Movie(s), Romance, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000, Wordcount: Over 10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-08
Updated: 2011-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:18:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamlittleyo/pseuds/dreamlittleyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cobb brings Arthur home. Arthur stays.<br/></p><div class="center">
<br/><img/></div>
            </blockquote>





	These Shadows We're Passing Through

Miles doesn't try to chat with him during the drive between airport terminal and home. Or maybe he does, and Cobb is just too checked out to notice. He can't seem to focus on anything through the anxious anticipation swirling in his stomach. The passing scenery outside the car window is so familiar it doesn't seem real.

This victory feels too impossible now that he's finally here.

The second he's through his front door, he spins Mal's top on the dining room table. But he doesn't wait for it to topple. His children's faces are waiting for him outside, James and Phillipa, all smiles and surprised squeals and tiny arms capturing him in wide, desperate hugs.

Dom's pretty sure he can deal with the impossible if he gets to have this.

It's not until hours later that he thinks to go back and reclaim his totem, with late evening settling dim around him and the kids on their way to bed. He returns to the table, eyes casting across its surface, but the familiar metal shape is gone. Its absence sets off a threatening kernel of panic in his chest, and he braces his hands on the table and forces himself to breathe.

"Everything all right, Dom?" Miles asks him, appearing from the hallway—out of nowhere, it feels like. He's in stocking feet, and worry shadows his features.

"Fine," Cobb lies, eyes still darting across the table in a futile effort to make the top appear.

"Are you sure?" presses Miles, taking a step closer. "You look a bit— _Ow_ , bugger!" Cobb's eyes fly to the old man, concern flaring instantly, and when Miles takes a jerking step back Dom lets his eyes drop to the floor. His totem is lying there, just waiting to be stepped on, and for a moment he simply stares. The thing didn't just topple while he wasn't looking—no, this time, it toppled right off the table and onto the floor.

"Oh, my," he hears Miles say from what feels like a long, foggy distance. "I think perhaps you've misplaced something."

Cobb crouches quickly, sweeps the top off the floor and into his hand before Miles can lean down to pick it up—not that the man seems particularly inclined to do so. The weight is familiar in his palm, heavier than it looks like it should be, and he closes his fingers into a fist around the smooth edges.

"Thanks," he says, straightening and standing as graciously as he can.

"Good night, Dom," says Miles, and reaches out to give Cobb's shoulder a quick, warm squeeze.

Cobb waits for him to leave the room, then spins the top on the table again. This time, he watches until it falls.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

Mada keeps a careful distance from him for the first couple of days, and Cobb tries not to mind. He hasn't seen her since just after Mal's death, and he's always figured she _must_ blame him for the way her daughter died. Nothing in their brief telephone interactions since then has dissuaded his assumptions.

But on day three of his miraculous return, with the windows open and the kitchen bathed in the warmth of a sunny evening, she approaches him.

Miles is outside with the children. Cobb is watching them from inside. And suddenly Mada is there at his elbow. She looks tired and sad, her arms crossed over her stomach and her white hair swirled back into a dignified bun. She glances at him, a subtle movement that he barely catches out of the corner of his eye, and finally she sighs.

"James and Phillipa will always be my first priority," she says softly, her accent thick and quiet and warm. "I couldn't keep stringing them along with false hope and promises. You might never have come home, and what then?"

"Thank you for taking care of them," says Cobb. He's grateful she could be here—if it hadn't been her, the task would invariably have fallen to Arthur, and Dom knows he'd never have made it home without his point man at his side. He never once doubted that she would do right by the kids—right by Mal—that she would care for those children like the precious things they are.

The two of them share silence for a moment, broken periodically by the bright, high shrieks of laughter leaking in through the open window.

"Dom," she says, and waits until he turns to really look at her before continuing. "I am glad you're home."

When she hugs him, his heart feels a tiny bit lighter.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

James and Phillipa both have nightmares.

Not every night, but with a regularity that breaks Dom's heart. His own sleep is dreamless and probably nowhere near sufficient in amount, but when he's already up in the less pleasant hours of the night it's easier to check in on the kids, easier to be there when one of them comes awake breathing fast and shallow and gasping for Mommy.

Usually Mommy. Sometimes Daddy.

Dom wants nothing more than to be there every time, to make it so they never have to wake up scared and alone, but even he needs sleep sometimes.

"It was just a dream, sweetheart," he tells Phillipa, rocking her in his arms and pressing his cheek to her hair. "I'm here if you want to tell me about it."

"I know that, Daddy," she whispers. She sounds older than she should. But she doesn't say anything else. Her arms are still trembling, and she's clinging to him like her life depends on it, and all he wants to do is make things right.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

Money isn't an issue.

Cobb spent his time away taking on nothing but high-stakes jobs—squirreling money aside in vast quantities that were never quite enough to get him home.

Money isn't an issue now that he's here, but Cobb goes back to work anyway.

He still doesn't dream when he sleeps, and the honest truth is that he misses it. Even more, he wants to know if he can build again. He wants to reclaim the quiet thrill of pure creation, to put his mind to work the way he's trained for. He still wants to spend every waking moment with his children, but now that desire is balanced by another need that exists just as deeply inside him.

He realizes soon enough that it's a need that won't be ignored, which is why he goes back to work.

The jobs he takes are completely legal. They're also too easy. Charges fixed or not, his background leaves him an unappealing candidate for sensitive government work. He gets plenty of offers for high stakes corporate espionage, but he steers well clear of those. He's finally home. He's not going to jeopardize his position now that he's finally made it.

Which leaves him with less exciting work, sure, but being back in the dream at all—building again, once he knows it's really something he can do—is quite nearly satisfaction enough.

When he starts to get antsy for more, all he has to do is look at his children, and he can feel the solid weight of a more important truth: this is all he needs.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

Miles has to return to Paris soon.

Cobb knows the man dropped everything to be at that airport—to play chauffeur as it turned out, and not to pass along the message that Daddy was going to prison—but he still wishes Miles could stay longer. He's the only one here that comes close to understanding everything that's happened, and even he can't possibly grasp just how far Cobb needed to go.

But there are classes to teach, a semester to finish, students and office hours and professorial duties. Miles has responsibilities of his own, and Cobb knows he's imposed enough already. He's imposed enough for a dozen lifetimes.

Mada doesn't want to go.

She says it's because Dom is working, that he needs someone to help him carry the load. He can't work _and_ devote himself to his children full time. Phillipa's in kindergarten, but James is too young for school. Cobb knows he could put his son in a good preschool program, but the idea doesn't sit right. Not yet. He knows Mada's point is solid.

He also knows it's not the real reason she wants to stay.

Sometimes when she looks at him there's still a sharp, shadowed worry in her eyes. She buries it as well as she can. They both pretend he can't see it. But the truth is that he knows she doesn't want to leave him alone with the children. She's afraid he might still slip away. He might still fuck up.

He won't. But that doesn't mean he has any idea how to convince her they'll be fine.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

He runs face first into the unexpected on what should be a normal Tuesday.

His job for this particular gig is twofold: create the dream, and then stand back to let another experienced extractor train the mark.

The mark is a rich client's nephew, already on his way to being groomed for a prominent position in the family's closely held corporation. They're training him to send his subconscious on the attack. Militarization. Messy, but effective, though Cobb doesn't see why a third person even needs to go under with them.

"I've done this before, you know," he tells the chemist—a tall, lanky woman named Miss Kim. "I'm perfectly capable of constructing the dream _and_ grooming the subject's subconscious." It's always messier solo. Takes a few tries, many of them painful, but it can be done. He doesn't need backup.

But Miss Kim just smiles, and shifts her eyes from Cobb to their client where he stands at the head of his nephew's bed. The boy is barely seventeen and already asleep, and his uncle raises his gaze to meet Cobb's eyes across the room.

"I'm given to understand it's a much faster process with two," says the uncle. "Besides, it will be good for him to have someone to practice on."

"You mean you want me to build the dream and act as bait," Cobb realizes aloud. Well hell, it won't be the first time he's done that either. "Fine. Where's our third?"

"Not here yet," says the client. "But he'll join us soon. Miss Kim will put him under when he arrives. In the meantime, perhaps you should get busy." Cobb doesn't even have time to protest before the button is being pressed and his eyes are drifting closed.

He crafts the dream quickly, easily, and then does his best to blend in. The longer he goes unnoticed, the longer this whole process stays painless.

He spots the subject—he doesn't look as young in here, but that's definitely him—and ducks into a side corridor. Cobb's not supposed to engage. If they want him to play bait—if they want him to be a challenge—then he needs to fly low for as long as he can.

He doesn't catch the precise moment the other extractor drops into the dream, but he definitely feels it the second the subject becomes aware. There's the slightest shift in reality, a straining of the architecture Cobb has so carefully constructed—which tells him the extractor has just revealed himself. The subject knows he's dreaming. The subject's subconscious knows this is someone _else's_ dream. And is now looking for Cobb.

The projections still don't notice him at first, but they catch on soon enough. They start seeing him, start following him, and he knows he doesn't have much time before this turns unpleasant. He ducks into an alley and moves faster, picks up speed at every corner. He slows down in a full, brightly lit corridor to try and avoid drawing attention, but of course he's already _got_ the subject's full attention by now. The projections are converging.

He makes it four steps before he's at a run again, ducking and dodging and staying a millimeter ahead of the throng.

When he runs head first into someone, his first thought is ' _That's not right_.'

His second thought is, ' _Nice suit_.'

His third thought, as he straightens his body and raises his eyes to the man's face is, ' _I'll be damned_.'

Of course, by then the subject's screaming subconscious has caught up with him and there's no getting away from the grasping, tearing hands. This really is going to hurt a hell of a lot. Except then Arthur raises a gun that he wasn't holding a moment ago, and shoots Cobb through the heart, and Cobb blinks awake having felt barely a scratch.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

They delve into the subject's mind three more times, and at the end of the day there's no way any extraction team is going in there unscathed. The kid's a natural at tearing people apart with his subconscious. Cobb chooses not to think too hard about the implications of that.

He leaves with Arthur when it's quitting time, though neither of them has said a word so far that didn't relate directly to the job. They let their feet carry them down the street outside until some anonymous pub catches Arthur's eye, and with nothing more than a confirming glance, they turn and step inside.

"How long do you have?" Arthur asks as he drapes his suit coat over the back of his chair.

"About an hour," says Cobb. He has to get home. James and Phillipa are waiting for him. They're always waiting for him, and he's determined to never let them down again.

He waits until they've ordered—until the food is on its way and they've both got a glass of something dark and stout and foaming—and then he asks the question that's been nagging at him since he first woke up from round one.

"What are you doing here?" But it's more than that, and before Arthur can answer he continues, "Doing this kind of lowball job, I mean. You're way better than this."

"So are you," Arthur says. He quirks an eyebrow over his beer and thanks the waiter when their food arrives. He doesn't offer any further explanation, and Cobb shrugs and picks up his silverware. The man's got a point after all. Besides, Arthur was never the one dragging them onto the wrong side of the legal fence. He was good at it, sure, but he always followed Dom's cues. He never dragged them down there himself.

"Where are you staying?" Cobb finally asks, raising his eyes from his salad and realizing Arthur hasn't stopped looking at him. The man's face is inscrutable, but his eyes are intense.

"The Doubletree on Riverside," says Arthur.

"No, I mean. After. Where are you at these days."

"Nowhere in particular," Arthur hedges. Then, in a softer tone, he admits, "I haven't quite managed to settle in yet."

"You should come with me," says Cobb. When Arthur cuts his eyes away instead of responding, he adds, "James and Phillipa ask about you. And I've been starting to wonder if you forgot where I live."

"I didn't want to intrude," says Arthur. He meets Cobb's eyes again, but his face holds a quiet, untraceable hesitation that's impossible to place.

"You wouldn't be intruding," Cobb insists. He knows he can't just let Arthur vanish off to another job now that he's here—it feels like a missing piece slotting back into place. "We've got three different guest rooms you can choose from. You can stay with us until you figure out somewhere else you'd rather be. What do you say?"

Arthur actually laughs at that. A quiet chuckle that brightens his face and makes his eyes squint around the edges.

"You might regret the duration of that offer," says Arthur, but the corner of his mouth is twitches upwards and there's gratitude in his eyes. It's not exactly 'yes', though, and Cobb needs to know Arthur is really with him. He needs to be sure Arthur won't just vanish as soon as his back is turned.

"Come with me," he presses softly. "Please." He'd reach across the table and take Arthur's hand if he thought he could get away with it, but this is supposed to be a casual invitation. He's not supposed to feel so desperate to hear 'yes' come out of Arthur's mouth, and he doesn't dare let on how loudly his pulse is hammering in his ears.

"Okay," Arthur finally concedes, and Cobb breathes quiet relief.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

Cobb's house does have three spare rooms, though Arthur actually only gets two of them to choose from. The third is currently playing host to Miles and Mada, both of whom greet Arthur with surprise and pleasure.

"It is good to see you, Arthur," Mada says warmly, sweeping him up in a familiar hug. "You've stayed away far too long."

"I'm sorry," says Arthur, returning the embrace with the same familiar warmth. "I should have been in touch."

"Oui," Mada smiles, patting him indulgently on the back and then kissing his cheek as she draws away. "But I forgive you."

From where Cobb stands, the whole exchange seems surreal. Mada has always been fond of Arthur, certainly. And it's always been obvious enough that the feeling was mutual. But the two were hardly close. Just mutual acquaintances with Mal and Dom at the center.

Then Cobb's brain winds forward and thinks of all the times Arthur flew stateside in his stead. All the times Cobb knew that Arthur was on his way to this very house, to visit James and Phillipa, to hug them and smile at them and tell them bedtime stories because Dom couldn't do it. There weren't many times, he'd thought, but there were obviously enough. Because Mada embraces Arthur as warmly as she did Dom, maybe more so, and the look in her eyes now is one that says she's happy to welcome family home.

"How long are you staying?" asks Miles. He's got an apron on and an oven mitt on one hand, and through the kitchen door behind him comes the soft sound of meat sizzling on the stove.

"No idea," says Arthur, sending a sheepish look Cobb's direction. "Awhile, I suppose. You're right that it's been too long."

Phillipa has approached while they talked, shy but warming quickly—unlike James who's still hiding behind Cobb's legs, peaking around his knees and blinking wide, curious eyes at the familiar face of their visitor. Phillipa grabs Arthur's hand now, and tugs at it until he drops into a crouch, putting himself at her eye level. Then she raises one hand to his ear and whispers a question behind it, words meant for Arthur alone.

She hasn't quite gotten the hang of 'quiet' yet, though, and Cobb easily picks up enough of the syllables to decipher: "Can we go play outside now?"

Arthur's face breaks into a wide, indulgent smile and he nods, standing without taking his hand back, following her out the door.

James watches from his hiding place for all of ten seconds before he's scampering after them, a rush of little limbs headed for the yard.

"Where did you find him, then, hmm?" Mada asks, a teasing tilt to her voice.

"In a dream," Dom answers honestly. "But when I woke up he was still there. So I brought him home with me." Which makes Arthur sound like a lost puppy, but as long as the end result is that he actually _stays_ , Cobb makes no apologies even in the privacy of his own mind.

"It's good that you did," Miles says, smiling as he turns back to the kitchen. "I think that boy missed you."

 

\- — - — - — - — -

Two days later Miles is on a plane back to Paris.

Mada goes with him.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

Despite the way they reconnected, Arthur and Dom don't work together often.

The only blemish on Arthur's background is his association with Cobb. He has no documented criminal history of his own, which is ironic but useful. It means the government is still willing to touch him with a ten foot pole, or at least with small, lucrative freelancing jobs.

People say Arthur's the one with no imagination, but Cobb knows better. No one can design a complex military training level like him, and despite his time riding the global black market in dream services, his old contacts seem to welcome him readily back.

So while Cobb works off-and-on at his independent, less than extravagant but still extremely legal jobs, Arthur takes on whatever government gigs catch his fancy. He seems to keep to a sedate schedule, one job at a time with plenty of open calendar between. These days he's making more of a career out of helping take care of James and Phillipa than doing outside work—Cobb's point man even at home—and Dom feels nothing but shameless gratitude. He hadn't realized before just how much he's missed Arthur's presence, but now that he's here Dom is greedy for it.

He'll take every moment he can get, and there's not a soul he wants to share with besides James and Phillipa.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

It takes him a solid month to realize that between him and Arthur, their work schedules never conflict enough to keep both of them away at once. After the fifth time Arthur strolls through the door just as Dom is dialing the phone for a babysitter, it finally hits him that he's been subtly played. Arthur has been coordinating their jobs and absences right under his nose, so smoothly that Cobb didn't even think to question.

He laughs out loud the moment he finally gets it, closing his cell phone and crossing his arms. He keeps his eyes on Arthur, watching as the man sets his briefcase on the table and hangs his coat over the back of a chair.

"You sly son of a bitch," he says. James and Phillipa are both upstairs, fortunately, which means no need to censor himself.

Arthur just smiles at him and says, "Not too quick, are you?"

"Apparently not," Cobb concedes. "Have you eaten? I was going to make a quick sandwich before I go. Pretty sure I could manage two."

"No, thanks," says Arthur, smile shifting from smug to warm. "But I appreciate the offer."

 

\- — - — - — - — -

"Why _were_ you on that job?" Cobb finally asks.

It's painfully early in the morning, but the coffee in his hands is helping him come to terms with that fact. He needs to be out the door in about forty minutes if he's going to make his interview with a new prospective client, which is why he's conscious at all at this ungodly hour.

Arthur is just up for the hell of it, so far as Dom can tell. He's already dressed, too. Bastard. No one should look so put together this early in the morning.

"Which job?" Arthur asks, but his tone is too aware. He's being deliberately obtuse, and he's not faking it very well.

"You know which job," says Cobb. "That _first_ job. The one that put us back on the same flight path."

Because at the time, he'd mistakenly assumed Arthur had simply fallen into the same limited field of opportunities as him. But with the kinds of jobs Arthur's been taking since—government contracts, high profile business deals, even teaching seminars for the more up-to-speed universities—Cobb's been fast discovering he needs to reevaluate his assumptions.

"Oh," says Arthur, in a tone that does nothing to clarify anything. "That job."

"I'm serious," says Dom. "I want to know. So we're both better than that kind of gig, fine. It's still pretty much the only kind I've got. Which is why I was there then, and why I'm here now. But not you."

"No, I guess not," says Arthur. His eyes cut stubbornly away.

" _Arthur_ ," presses Cobb, letting tired warning creep into his voice. His grip tightens on the coffee mug in his hand, and he stares at the side of his friend's face with all the stubborn focus of someone who won't be avoided this easily.

Arthur finally sighs, shoulders slumping a little, and says, "Maybe it had nothing to do with available opportunity." And when Cobb just waits expectantly for more, he fidgets with the cuff of his sleeve and says, "I just… knew what kinds of jobs you'd be taking."

"And what? You figured if you took the same jobs, you'd run into me eventually?"

Arthur doesn't respond, but he finally meets Cobb's eyes and his silence is as good as yes. Cobb just stares back for a moment, a little bit disbelieving. He holds his tongue until he realizes Arthur fully intends to make him break this particular silence.

"I do have a phone, you know," he points out reasonably. Three of them, actually, a fact with which Arthur is already very much familiar. It's not something he should even need to say out loud, but he finds himself saying it anyway.

Arthur throws him a soft, sheepish look and says, "I didn't want to intrude."

It was a ridiculous response the first time, and it's even more ridiculous now. It leaves Cobb shaking his head, raising his mug to take another sip of coffee because coffee at least makes sense.

"You can sure be thick sometimes," he says gruffly.

They both laugh, and it doesn't matter that it's a little forced, a little uncomfortable. They laugh, and then stop, and then move their conversation on to safer things until Cobb has to head out the door.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

James and Phillipa still have nightmares. Cobb still tries and fails to guard them from the bad dreams.

He always asks Phillipa if she wants to talk about them, and she always shakes her head no and clings to him even tighter. James would tell him, he thinks, but by the time the boy calms down enough to speak he never quite remembers. Cobb supposes it's better that way. Better that the nightmares vanish quickly and leave room for smiles and sunlight when morning finally comes.

Cobb nearly has a heart attack the night he pokes his head in to James's room to check on him and finds the small, race-car-shaped bed empty.

He's going to wake Arthur, going to search the whole damn house, going to call the cops and the FBI and anyone else with a phone number—but first he needs to make sure Phillipa's okay. When he opens the door to her room and steps inside, the panic bleeds sharply, instantly out of him.

Because there's James. A tiny lump in Phillipa's bed, wedged between her back and the wall. They both look so calm and easy, as if even in sleep big sister is standing guard. As if maybe they've found their own way to keep the nightmares at bay.

James still comes awake with a cry later, and Cobb is still there—he knows damn well he's not going to be able to sleep with all the residual adrenaline still amping him up. He swoops in and scoops his little boy up in his arms, reaches down to smooth Phillipa's hair beneath his fingers as he tells her it's all right, go back to sleep, sweetheart, I've got him.

He carries James into the living room and sits with him on the wide, chocolate-brown couch. Holds him until James is done shaking and hiccupping and crying into his shoulder.

He grabs a Kleenex and holds it at the ready. "Blow," he says, and then tosses the used tissue into the garbage by the door.

"You're okay," he whispers, holding James to him protectively. "I'm here." He asks what the dream was about and gets the same small, helpless shrug he always does.

"Daddy?" James asks, scooting back on Cobb's lap until he can raise huge, wide eyes to his father's face. "Why can't Mommy come home?"

Cobb swallows past the guilty knot in his chest, and for a moment, doesn't even know where to start.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

Daylight protects them all from nightmares, and from where Cobb sits at the dining room table—with his sketches and diagrams and work notes—he has an unimpeded view out the window. It lets him raise his eyes from his work every five minutes or so, to watch Arthur and the kids in the yard.

He can't tell what they're doing from here. There's a lot of flailing. Running and squealing and finally Arthur sitting down in the grass, an exaggerated slump of defeat curving his shoulders.

James and Phillipa each reach for a hand, tugging and pulling with all their strength as if they can get him back on his feet by force of will. Cobb manages to catch Phillipa's shrill command when she says, "Come _on_ , Uncle Arthur!" But Arthur shakes his head and laughs and instead drags them down to the grass beside him.

The sight brings a smile to Cobb's lips, and a quiet warmth to his chest. He'll never be able to sit in this room without being all too aware of just what— _who_ —is missing, but still this moment manages to fill him with a soft throb of contentment.

The children clearly adore Arthur—obviously and honestly and completely—and now that he's here, Dom honestly doesn't know how they survived a day without him.

He also wonders, sometimes, how Arthur survived without them.

Because the way the man smiles now—the way his face lights up for Dom's children, the way he lets them muss his hair and drag him outside even if he hasn't yet managed to change out of his suit—clearly shows that the river of adoration flows both ways.

It's such a contrast to the carefully controlled poker face and understated half-smiles that Arthur reserves for the rest of the world, and Cobb finds himself utterly, shamelessly grateful.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

They start to work together more frequently. Mostly Cobb's jobs, but sometimes—more and more often as Arthur builds enough of a solo reputation to call his own shots—they get to collaborate on Arthur's. It's nowhere near a regular thing, but it happens often enough now that Cobb realizes just how much he missed conspiring with Arthur.

Individually, they're the best at what they do.

As a team, they're even better.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

Cobb's not even supposed to be home yet the day he hears James call Arthur 'Daddy'.

He hovers in the doorway, hand over his own mouth to keep from laughing out loud and giving his presence away. It occurs to him on some level that maybe he should feel threatened, or at least a little annoyed. That is _his_ son, after all. Not Arthur's. He shouldn't want to share.

But the expression of pure, undiluted panic on Arthur's face makes the whole scene too humorous to resent. There's a long, stilted silence while Arthur opens and closes his mouth, repeatedly, like he's trying to find the right thing to say and failing at it. It makes him look a little like a fish.

Finally, he manages, "No, James. It's. It's Uncle Arthur, remember? Daddy's at work."

"I know Daddy's at work," says James, as if Uncle Arthur is being confused and maybe a little stupid.

"Then." That seems to give Arthur pause, and he tilts his head just slightly to the side. "Then why—"

"My friend Laura has two daddies," James explains patiently, voice sounding young and authoritative all at once. Like that explains everything. Arthur blinks at him, and Dom finally manages to lower his hand. He still feels an amused smile twisting his face, and something else, too. Something he can't quite identify that's new and different and nagging deep in his chest.

He ignores it for the moment in favor of seeing just how Arthur manages to extricate himself.

"Some kids do," Arthur concedes, running his hand back over hair that's already perfect. "But that's not. I'm not." He flounders, and finally settles for, "I'm just Uncle Arthur, okay?

James looks up at the man like he's crazy, but finally nods.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

They're months into their strange new arrangement before Arthur finally starts making noise about needing to move on and find his own place.

"What are you talking about?" Cobb demands, caught off guard both by Arthur's unexpected assertion and by the unpleasant way it makes his chest pulse.

"I just think I've imposed on your hospitality long enough," says Arthur, not quite meeting his eyes. The night is still and silent around them, which means there's nothing else for Arthur to look at—no movement to draw his attention—but he keeps his eyes averted anyway.

"No," says Cobb, without even waiting to think it through. When Arthur still doesn't look at him, he reaches out—sets a firm hand on Arthur's arm and lets his fingers close into a commanding grip. "You're never an imposition. And I won't have it. You're staying."

It doesn't occur to him until after the words are out of his mouth that it's not really his call to make. Maybe Arthur's being polite and this actually has nothing to do with feeling like an imposition. Maybe he really _does_ want to move on, and all of this is holding him back.

Cobb is already trying to figure out a way to backtrack and ask if Arthur still _wants_ to be here when he realizes the man is smiling. Not just smiling, but meeting his eyes, wearing an expression that's so bright and intense it's hard to look at. Cobb's not sure he could look away if he wanted to, and his voice catches suddenly, stubbornly in his throat.

"I guess I am staying, then," says Arthur. The words slip from his mouth so easily that Cobb doesn't have a single lingering doubt as to just where Arthur wants to be.

He still wonders if he should say something to let Arthur know he understands how much he's asking. It's too much, more than he has any right to demand even if Arthur does seem content to humor him. He thinks maybe he should tell Arthur that if he really does want to go, Cobb will support his decision.

But the next day he watches Arthur playing with the children, and knows he isn't strong enough to risk it.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

Miles and Mada visit over Christmas, and they have a surprise in tow.

"Ariadne!" Arthur exclaims, face reflecting the same pleased surprise that Cobb himself feels at the sight of the young architect. It's Arthur that darts forward to divest her of all her heavy, present-filled baggage, while Cobb helps Miles and Mada get situated.

By the time Cobb has finished carrying suitcases and duffels and oversized presents into the large guest room, Arthur and Ariadne have found their way to the living room with enormous mugs of microwave-heated cider.

Cobb approaches quietly, not wanting to intrude.

There's a tree in the corner—bare and undecorated, because they couldn't start without Grandpa and Grandma. It's tradition. Everyone else is outside, taking advantage of the temperate California weather—James and Phillipa have always loved the outdoors more than even the most spacious corner of the living room inside.

"It's my last semester," Ariadne is in the midst of explaining. "I haven't quite figured out what I'm doing after. I've got plenty of prospects, but… I can't seem to nail down where I want to go."

"How many of these prospects are legal?" Arthur teases. One of his quieter, subtler smiles lightens his expression. He's sitting closer to her than strictly necessary on the wide couch, not seeming to mind the way her arm is draped across the tall cushion behind him. There's a casual ease to their proximity—Cobb half expects her to lift her feet off the floor and drape them across Arthur's lap.

Ariadne smiles at the question, and answers, "More of them than you might think."

The scene bothers Cobb, for reasons he can't nail down. He tries for a moment—he may not always have his shit together, but he doesn't like not knowing where his issues are coming from.

Whatever it is, though, he can't quite place it, and he gives up quickly.

He puts a mostly genuine smile on his face and steps from the shadowed hallway into the room.

"You should definitely stick to the legal ones," he says, even though no one is asking for his opinion. "The more questionable employers may pay better, but they have a tendency to turn around and bite you in the ass."

"Also," Arthur adds helpfully. "Shitty benefits."

"I'll keep that in mind," Ariadne says with a smirk, and sips from her mug of cider.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

Ariadne doesn't stay through the entire holiday. She's got family of her own to visit while she's stateside.

She leaves the Cobb house with presents and hugs, and promises she'll visit again.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

After the fourth time Dom finds James asleep in Phillipa's bed, he enlists Arthur's help and together they move James's race-car bed into her room. He figures it can only help.

"You're sure you don't mind?" he asks Phillipa at least three times. He remembers how excited she was when they first moved to this house—how bright and gleeful at the prospect of having her own room instead of having to share with the baby. He doesn't want to take that away from her now.

But she just stares at him with serious eyes and says, "It's okay, Daddy. James needs me."

In that moment Dom is so proud of his little girl that his chest hurts.

Later that evening, when they've got the kitchen to themselves and a moment of quiet after dinner, Arthur locks him with a knowing look and says, "They'll be okay, you know. The nightmares are already better than when I first got here."

Cobb wishes he could nod, smile, share in the reassurance. He wishes he could answer with a simple, ' _I know_.' But he knows what his children have lost. He's all too aware of his own guilt, and of how much worse his prolonged absence made an already impossible situation.

So he doesn't answer. He's got nothing to say that Arthur hasn't already heard.

He doesn't expect Arthur to stand and move closer. The table's been cleared—both of them sitting in their usual seats—but now Arthur approaches him, stops beside him and perches against the table with his hands curled over the edge on either side of him. He's silent, like he's waiting for something, and Cobb finally raises his head to meet the man's dark eyes.

"They've been through a lot," says Arthur. "But they're strong kids. You've already given them that much."

"What if it's not enough?" Dom whispers. The question feels ragged in his throat.

"It will be," Arthur insists. He sounds stubborn and sure, and there's steel and certainty flashing in his eyes. He raises his hand—hesitates a moment—and finally reaches across the short space to close his fingers around Cobb's wrist. Warm reassurance. "They'll be okay," he says firmly. "You just… need to give them time."

"James asks about Mal and I never know what to say," Cobb confesses.

"You do fine," says Arthur. Like he's been there, like he's heard for himself. He probably has, Cobb realizes, and to his surprise the thought doesn't make him the slightest bit uncomfortable.

"Phillipa never talks to me about her at all," Cobb presses. Because now that he's started, he can't seem to stop.

"I know," says Arthur. His face is kind and understanding, and he still hasn't taken his hand back. Cobb thinks the sustained contact should be making him edgy, especially with Arthur sitting so close, but all it's making him feel is grounded. It doesn't even occur to him to pull away from the touch.

"Does she talk to you?" he asks, and watches in fascination as Arthur's gaze goes instantly shuttered.

There's a pause, long and guilty, and finally Arthur says, "Sometimes." He looks like he half expects an angry response, or at least a disappointed one—like he feels out of line about the whole thing, an intruder in uninvited territory.

But when he starts to pull his hand away, Cobb reaches to stop him. He closes his own hand over the point of contact, holding Arthur there and refusing to let him retreat.

"Thank you," he says, not breaking eye contact for a second. His voice feels tight and wrong, but he means it. God does he mean it. It breaks his heart that his little girl won't talk to him—not that he blames her—but at least he knows Arthur is there.

Arthur's eyebrows fly up in surprise, but he nods as if he understands.

He doesn't say ' _you're welcome_ ', but he doesn't try to take his hand back again.

Dom still finds James sleeping in the wrong bed as often as not, but Arthur's words stick in his head and reassure him. When he tells himself they just need time, he very nearly believes it.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

There's no single thing that makes the revelation hit home—no instant or event that connects the dots in his head and makes the picture come suddenly clear.

It's more that it finally hits him that Arthur shouldn't be here. Not that Cobb would trade his friend's presence for anything—he's not even sure he'd remember how to _breathe_ without Arthur these days, let alone hold his life together with this tenuous, perfect balance.

But when he really thinks about it, he comes every time to the same inevitable conclusion. This arrangement of theirs doesn't make sense from where Arthur's standing. He loves the kids, sure. And it's not like he doesn't have a thriving string of business arrangements and jobs. But he could be doing so much more if Cobb weren't holding him back. He could be all over the world, taking on nothing but the most challenging, the most lucrative assignments. He could teach full time at one of the dozens of schools that focus on dream technology and its uses, or he could accept a full-time contract with any number of different governments—he could be pushing the world's limits, and doing it with the same refined poise with which he does everything else.

Instead he's here, trapped in Cobb's small, careful world.

It's a world Dom finds he's surprisingly content with himself. But it isn't enough for Arthur. The man could be doing so much more.

And then Cobb thinks back over every job Arthur has ever followed him on. They've worked independently before, sure. Even before the inception that brought Cobb home, they sometimes worked separate jobs. But Arthur never once let him down when Cobb called him. He never once said no or walked away, sometimes even when he should have.

Cobb thinks back over every bad idea he's ever had, and he realizes that no matter how noisily Arthur protested, his point man never failed to follow him down. He realizes, abruptly, that it never once occurred to him to wonder if Arthur might finally say 'no.'

He feels winded at the thought, then guilty at how easily, how long he's taken Arthur for granted.

He's still stewing on this enlightened new perspective—still thinking about Arthur with a new, driven focus—when he catches Arthur watching him. There's nothing different about the look in Arthur's eye. There's nothing overt to give the game away. But there's something suspicious in the way Arthur instantly averts his gaze, the way he looks out the window too long afterwards when there's not so much as a squirrel moving on the lawn.

And that's it, really. That's how it all comes together, and Cobb realizes something he should maybe have seen months ago.

It leaves him stunned and spinning and unable to deny it now that he knows. Arthur is in love with him.

It's a truth he has no idea how to respond to, not even in the quiet space of his own mind, so Cobb does the only thing he can think to do. He turns away, keeps his mouth shut, and pretends he didn't see.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

He knows better than to interrupt when he wakes in the middle of the night and finds Arthur and Phillipa in the living room.

They're not sitting on the couch. They're curled together in the tall-backed chair near the window, and Phillipa looks impossibly small where she's tucked against Arthur's chest. Cobb knows he should walk away, but he can't seem to turn his back on the sight. He can't seem to breathe, either, though that might just be because he's worried they'll hear him.

He forces his lungs to take a quiet breath, in and out, and resigns himself to the inevitable. He's going to stand here and eavesdrop, and he's not even going to feel that guilty.

"Do you want to tell me about it?" Arthur asks. The question is softly spoken, but in the midnight quiet of the room Cobb has no trouble hearing.

"It was the same," says Phillipa. Her voice is even softer than Arthur's, and Cobb actually has to strain to make out her words. "It's always the same."

"Tell me anyway," says Arthur. Like he's heard it half a dozen times already but wants nothing more than to hear it again.

Phillipa's hands reach up and clutch at Arthur's rumpled t-shirt, fingers disappearing in the folds of worn fabric. Arthur touches her hair, brushing it aside with a careful tenderness that seems to say, ' _It's all right, sweetheart. I'm here. Take your time_.'

"Everyone's gone," she finally says, and her tiny voice shakes. "Mommy and Daddy and Grandma and… and even James. They're supposed to be here, and they're not, and no matter how hard I look they're still _gone_." The words turn shrill and rushed by the end, like the panic of the dream is creeping up on her, and Cobb sees Arthur's grip tighten as he soothes her with soft, hushed tones. He holds her even closer as she shakes in his arms so hard Cobb can see it from his shadowed vantage point.

Minutes pass, and eventually Phillipa calms.

"It's okay to be scared," Arthur murmurs. "But they're just dreams, remember? You're not alone, sweetheart. That's never going to happen." He presses a quick kiss to her forehead. "I promise," he adds. Cobb's eyes feel wet.

There's silence for so long he wonders if Phillipa has fallen asleep in Arthur's lap. The stillness of the scene makes it seem like a plausible theory, and with no light save the glow coming from the lamp in the far corner he can't quite tell if his daughter's eyes are open.

Then Phillipa's voice breaks the silence, stronger now as she asks, "Do you ever have nightmares, Uncle Arthur?"

"I sure do," says Arthur. "Everyone does."

"Do they scare you?"

"Sometimes," Arthur admits. "Dreams can be pretty scary."

"Yeah," Phillipa says quietly.

Silence and stillness settle in again, until finally Arthur says, "Should we get you back to bed?"

"Not yet," says Phillipa, though this time she sounds sleepy. Like she's already drifting off in the warm security of Arthur's arms.

Arthur just smiles, expression barely visible in the soft, dim lamplight, and utters an impossibly quiet, "Okay."

When Cobb finally withdraws, they still haven't moved.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

It's the very next morning, just as Cobb is blinking awake to the muted light through his curtains, that he realizes another unexpected truth.

He's in love with Arthur.

He's not just idly considering the possibility, not just wondering and starting to fall. He's long gone. There was probably a point of no return that he passed somewhere along the line—a moment where he could maybe have turned around and stopped himself from reaching this point—but if so, it's long gone. Buried months upon months behind him, so far back he doubts he could pinpoint it among the other memories—memories of Arthur with the kids, Arthur handing him coffee in the kitchen, Arthur grinning and laughing and feeling, more than anything, like home.

It's terrifying, and exhilarating, and for a moment Cobb can't remember how to breathe.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

He hasn't dreamed for himself since he got back to L.A..

He'll readily admit, at least in his own head, that the reason is partly fear—irrational, maybe, since Mal hasn't followed him into a single job, not since the inception job dragged him back to limbo. But partly, he simply hasn't wanted to. He's back with his children, and he's said his goodbyes. What more does he need with dreams?

His chest still aches, open and raw in the place Mal will always be. And these new feelings for Arthur—sharp and vivid and impossibly bright—fuck, it all seems like too much. How's it supposed to fit when his heart feels like it's stuffed to bursting already?

A second, less pleasant thought hits him, a shadowy creeping doubt that's so much worse: what if the things he's feeling aren't real? It seems simultaneously insane and terrifyingly plausible, and he has to consider the possibility. What if Mal is still buried somewhere in his subconscious, a willful hurricane twisting his emotions around and trying to make him fuck up the most important friendship he's got?

The devious shade he'd constructed in his mind certainly had it in for Arthur before. Why not now?

The worries circle endlessly in his gut, questions and shadows and no solid answers. He's quieter than usual for days, long enough that Arthur starts throwing him concerned looks, but he continues to keep his thoughts to himself. What the hell is he even supposed to say? He can't just up and tell his best friend that he's fallen in love with him, not when he doesn't even know for himself what the feelings mean.

But as the days stretch by and Cobb watches Arthur with the kids, he feels the ache settle low and stubborn in his heart.

He's got it bad, and he quickly comes to realize: he can't come back from this.

He's already too far gone.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

He begs off the next couple of collaborations Arthur floats past him. Too busy, already took a different job, parent teacher conferences… All solid excuses individually, but they still make Arthur arch his eyebrows skeptically. Combined they form an unmistakable pattern that Arthur can't possibly miss.

But Cobb doesn't dare share dreams with Arthur when his thoughts are this much of a mess. If he can't sort things out in his conscious mind, he doesn't dare risk tipping his hand. He's terrified of what his subconscious might have to say on the subject with Arthur there to overhear, and he knows it's safer not to take the chance.

He just needs a little more time, is all.

But time passes, and his thoughts do nothing to clear. He catches himself staring at Arthur, too often, and longer than he should. He finds it difficult to look away, and even more difficult not to touch, and one of these days he's going to be too obvious. Arthur is going to glance up at just the wrong moment, and the look in Cobb's eyes will give him instantly away.

It's pretty much inevitable. Which doesn't mean he's got any idea what to do about it.

It's a weekend—more than an hour past the children's bedtime, but they're only now getting James and Phillipa to bed. Phillipa's practically unconscious on her feet, teeth brushed in a daze that was mostly sleepwalking, and she moves down the hallway now in a way that makes her look more like a b-movie zombie than a little girl. She disappears through the door to her bedroom, and Cobb leans against the doorframe to wait.

James isn't far behind, but he's out cold. Unconscious weight in Arthur's arms as Arthur moves through the hallway towards Phillipa's door. The boy's face is smushed against the once crisp collar of Arthur's shirt, his little arms dangling carelessly at his sides. He's wearing pajamas covered with blue and orange frogs.

Arthur himself looks rumpled as hell, though the tired smile on his face says he doesn't particularly mind. His hair is still perfect, but his shirt sleeves have been rolled haphazardly up to his elbows and one is collapsing back down towards the wrist—the shirt buttons at his throat are coming undone of their own accord, and there's not a single inch of the pale fabric that hasn't suffered wrinkles upon wrinkles. He's barefoot, and his face bears a soft, humoring smile.

Cobb means to let him walk right past, but as Arthur approaches the doorway Dom's hand reaches out without first consulting his brain. His fingers close around Arthur's elbow, drawing him up short. Arthur blinks at him, confused but unconcerned—and instead of letting him go, which is what he should be doing here, Cobb steps closer.

It puts him _too_ close, right inside Arthur's personal space, and Cobb's rational brain is already telling him to back off as Arthur's expression shifts from unworried confusion to something dangerously close to comprehension.

The quick edge of panic is all the impetus Cobb needs, and he steps quickly away. Lets his hand fall aside, though surrendering the contact takes more effort than it should.

"Good night, Arthur," he says. Like that's all he intended to do. Like he _wasn't_ about to do something decisive and irrevocable.

When he turns and escapes down the hallway, he feels like nothing so much as a coward.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

Even though nothing really happened, the incident in the hallway finally forces Dom's hand. It makes him realize that whatever the hell is going on in his head, he needs to figure it out.

He needs to know if what he's feeling is real, or just a self-induced mindfuck.

He needs to dream. There's no other way to be sure that Mal is really gone. And maybe it's irrational, but he doesn't like the thought of locking himself behind a door with the PASIV, putting himself under in the unrelenting silence of an empty room.

"Are you sure about this?" Arthur asks him no fewer than three times. There's a wary expression on his face as he carries the familiar silver briefcase into Dom's room. The bedside clock reads just after one a.m., and now the house is quiet. Now's as good a time as any.

"Completely," says Cobb. He undoes his cuffs as he sits on the edge of the bed—rolls up his sleeves as he shifts along the comforter to lay back against the pillows. Arthur watches him closely, and the scrutiny leaves Cobb feeling more unsettled than he wants to admit. His eyes track Arthur's every movement as he sits on the edge of the bed at Cobb's side, the PASIV open on a chair that he's pulled close beside them.

"Do you want me to come in with you?" Arthur asks. Cobb can practically see the questions swarming in his eyes, but he doesn't dare explain.

"No," he says stiffly. "But thank you."

That might be hurt he sees in Arthur's eyes, but he can't quite be sure.

Once the line is in his arm, he fades quickly. The world he sinks into is shatteringly familiar.

It should be, of course. He constructed it himself, from his own strongest memories. His most powerful regrets. And around every corner he expects to find Mal lurking expectantly, muted violence in her eyes.

But she isn't there.

He still catches glimpses. Corners and pieces and snapshots from once upon a time. These are all memories of _her_ , after all. A prison he tried to construct, pretending to himself all the while that it could ever be enough. That he was strong enough to keep her in and keep her out, all at the same time.

But she's gone now. The memories that he walks and rides and stumbles through are nothing but memories. They hurt, but they don't surge to overwhelm him—to attack. Mal's image stays caught in those moments, nothing but fragmented snapshots of her with the kids, with him. It makes his chest ache, standing on the outside and looking in like this. Doing nothing but remembering. But then, this is how it's supposed to be. This is how it's supposed to _feel_.

He steps back into the elevator and hits the button all the way at the bottom of the panel, and it takes him to the same shattered chaos it always does.

The mangled, torn-apart hotel room still makes his heart stop in his chest and his breath catch in his throat. It still leaves him winded and breathless, like a fall from too high that didn't quite kill him. It still leaves his head spinning with nauseous guilt and shame and the unmistakable, ever-present revelation of everything he's lost.

But the room is empty. Mal isn't here. The night is dark through the open window, a midnight breeze jostling the curtains, but there's no one outside.

He comes awake smoothly, blinking against the dim light from his bedside lamp, and there's Arthur. Hovering over him with questions and concern in his eyes. He's a little too close, braced with one arm against the mattress, and it's all Cobb can do to feign calm—to keep air moving in and out of his lungs at a steady enough pace not to let on just how hard Arthur's proximity is hitting him.

It's almost worse, now that he knows these feelings are exactly what they seem.

Arthur has already pulled the line from Dom's wrist, and his face is all warmth and worry.

"Find what you needed?" he asks, eyes searching.

"Yeah," says Cobb. He maneuvers past Arthur and stands on mostly steady legs—puts a couple careful steps of distance between them. "Yeah, I think I did.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

Unfortunately, now that Cobb knows what the final score is he has to decide what to do about it.

He decides pretty quickly that the only respectable course of action is to seduce his best friend.

He goes about it subtly at first. He gets too close whenever he reaches past Arthur for something. Takes to setting a hand at the small of Arthur's back whenever he can get away with it, a hand at the nape of his neck whenever he peers at something over Arthur's shoulder. He sits closer than strictly necessary on the couch, the deck, the grass outside—wherever the opportunity presents itself, really.

His efforts don't go unnoticed, but Arthur doesn't respond the way he expects. All Cobb ever gets in return for his efforts are confused looks, a subtle shifting to put more space between them, a vexed knitting of Arthur's brow as his friend tries to figure out exactly what this craziness is about.

It makes Cobb wonder if he's only imagining the depth of Arthur's affection. Maybe he's got things wrong. Maybe Arthur's interest in him really does only span so far as devoted friendship.

So Cobb steps back for a few days and does nothing but watch, and what he sees cements his previous certainty. Arthur gravitates towards him naturally, like a reliable orbiting moon. He seeks Dom out first thing every morning, never goes to bed without stopping to say goodnight. He shares wide, bright grins with James and Phillipa, but his softest, warmest smiles are for Dom. He gets this look in his eyes sometimes, wistful and wanting, that Dom honestly can't believe he didn't see before.

Arthur is unquestionably in love with him. Has been for years, maybe, though Cobb tries not to think too hard about that. He doesn't like the quiet guilt that accompanies the thought, the idea that he could have missed something so vital. He doesn't need to think about the past, though. Not where Arthur is concerned.

No, what matters is now.

But subtlety isn't working. Discreet and understated isn't getting his message across—isn't doing anything but befuddling Arthur, getting their signals crossed and confused.

He should probably just _say_ something. He and Arthur have never been big on talking—or rather, Dom's never been big on talking and Arthur's never been one to force the issue. If ever he owed Arthur an attempt at direct, honest communication, this is it.

But his throat closes tight at the thought of trying to find words for all this. It's too much, an overwhelming tidal wave of things he can't possibly say without getting it all twisted around and wrong. There's an intensity here that terrifies him.

No, he decides. No words. Not now, not yet.

He needs to make an actual move, and put subtle flirtation behind them.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

He waits a week and a half, gauging his moment, and on a late Sunday night he finds Arthur alone in the kitchen.

Cobb's approach is nearly ninja-quiet. Arthur doesn't acknowledge him, but Cobb knows damn well that the man is all too aware of his presence. Maybe he's suspicious. Maybe he's waiting to see what Dom will do.

Arthur has his back to him, ignoring him resolutely, and reaches to open a high cupboard beside the fridge—he reaches with his right hand, braces against the counter with his left. Cobb interrupts him halfway. He steps right in close, right behind him, possessive and entitled, and reaches his arm high to parallel Arthur's. He flattens his palm against the cupboard door Arthur has just started to open, and closes it with an abrupt snap.

Arthur doesn't let go of the cupboard handle, and Cobb doesn't lower his arm. He waits a beat, then rests his other hand on the countertop to Arthur's left, bracketing the man on both sides and leaning in.

Pressed against him like this, Cobb can feel the tension tightening Arthur's body. It's all he can do not to press a kiss to the smooth, inviting skin just below the ear. Fuck, Arthur is _right there_ , and Cobb forces himself to inhale slowly—to ground himself in the moment. He noses lightly at the shell of Arthur's ear, letting his breath ghost out on a shallow sigh.

They hold that way, taut and still, for an impossibly long moment.

Arthur moves first, turning just his head, just slightly to the right. Just enough to whisper a barely audible, "Dom, what are you doing?"

The movement offers up even more of Arthur's throat, tempting and tense, and Cobb is practically nuzzling him—just wants _closer_ , god damn it—as he answers with a low, murmured, "I think we need to talk."

He's not expecting Arthur's next move, sudden as it is. In a single, smooth sweep of motion, Arthur spins and shoulders free and pushes until he's leaning back against the opposite counter, hands gripping the smooth edge, with Cobb three solid steps away. Arthur's eyes are wide, startled into an impenetrable expression that looks a little too close to panic.

Cobb should probably say something here. He should make at least an attempt to explain. But his voice is lost somewhere in his toes as he takes in the enticing vision before him. Arthur was obviously on his way to unwinding for bed. His sleeves are unbuttoned and rolled carelessly up his arms. There's no tie, no vest, and the collar of his well-pressed shirt hangs open, relaxed and inviting. There are four buttons undone, a fifth on its way to joining them, and that does things to Cobb. It sets something off, low and wanting in his gut.

He moves without thinking, striding straight back into the space he was just evicted from, and reaches for Arthur. He curls one hand at the nape of Arthur's neck, the other tight around the wrist Arthur raises instinctively, defensively between them.

Dom doesn't want anything between them.

He kisses Arthur without preamble, snakes his tongue quickly and easily past Arthur's startled lips. His own eyes are open—he wants to see everything—which means it doesn't escape his notice that Arthur's eyes slide closed almost immediately. Cobb takes that as an invitation to negate every remaining centimeter of space between them, and the newfound heat is enough to leave him groaning into Arthur's mouth.

For a moment, he thinks it could be this easy. Then Arthur surprises him again.

Arthur twists away from the kiss—though not out from beneath Cobb's hands, which are holding on too tightly for him to get away without a little more effort than that—and drags in a startled breath.

"Dom, what the fuck?" he gasps.

But instead of answering, Cobb presses a kiss to Arthur's jaw. Then another. Then a quick, stinging bite to his neck in that tempting spot just beneath the ear, which is apparently just the ticket because it draws a startled, pleasure-filled sound from Arthur's throat—something halfway between a groan and a gasp. Cobb sucks at that spot, knowing he's bound to leave a mark. He can feel Arthur's pulse beneath his tongue—can feel it picking up speed as Arthur's body arches against him.

When he kisses Arthur a second time, Arthur actually reciprocates. He grasps at Dom with clinging fingers, and Cobb's own hands take on a more explorative spirit, desperate to touch everywhere they can.

And then Arthur knocks him flat with one final, sharp surprise. He freezes beneath Cobb's hands, then sends him stumbling back with a shove so hard it lands him on his ass.

His new position on the floor isn't particular dignified, but Cobb can't quite spare the brainpower to be concerned for his pride. He's a little too busy staring.

If Arthur looked comfortably disheveled before, he looks positively sinful now. His hair is a mess from the exploration of Cobb's fingers, his collar even further askew, and his pupils are dilated wide. His jaw hangs slack as he struggles for control, lips swollen from the press of greedy lips, and Cobb's head spins with all the things it makes him want to do.

"Fuck you, Dom," says Arthur. He sounds calmer than he looks. "Fuck you if you think I'm going to just smile and roll over and pretend to be her."

"What? No! Arthur, it's not—"

But Arthur is already gone, hurried footsteps down the hall and then the soft click of his bedroom door closing.

Cobb can only imagine how hard Arthur actually _wanted_ to slam that door.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

The next morning, Arthur doesn't say a word about what happened. He keeps a stubborn physical distance between them, and there's a heavy caution in his eyes, but he still smiles and says good morning. He still hands Cobb a cup of coffee the second the brew is ready.

Arthur leaves around seven a.m. for a job—early flight to New York, where he'll be teaching a two-day seminar on paradoxical architecture—which leaves Dom to wake the kids and get Phillipa ready for school.

It's a job that falls to Arthur as often as not these days, because Phillipa insists he's better at it. Whenever Dom asks _why_ , she just rolls her eyes and fixes him with a pitying expression that looks entirely too grown-up on her face. He's eventually been able to piece together that it's all about what to wear. Cobb is apparently incapable of grasping the intricacies of kindergarten fashion and is no help whatsoever.

By contrast, it seems Arthur can do no wrong.

"Sweetheart, why can't you just wear the dark purple shirt?" he asks, feeling the exasperation settle tiredly beneath his skin. The light purple shirt is at the bottom of the laundry hamper after a run-in with a vanilla shake, and apparently no substitution is good enough.

"Daddyyyy," Phillipa whines, crossing her arms and glaring at him like it's _his_ fault.

Okay, maybe he should have done the laundry yesterday. But it's still not fair, the way she's glaring at him like he's at fault for every fashion faux pas of five-going-on-six-year-olds everywhere.

In the end they start from scratch—the jeans with the strawberry sewn on the back pocket, and then the striped pink t-shirt that Grandpa and Grandma bought for Christmas. It's enough of a compromise to get them out the door, anyway, and for a brief moment, Dom isn't even thinking about Arthur.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

Arthur's gone an extra day past what he had originally planned for the trip. When he comes back on day three, he still doesn't seem inclined to talk.

Cobb keeps his mouth shut until both kids are asleep. He waits until it's just the two of them moving quietly through their own evening rituals. Then he corners Arthur in the living room, crosses his arms over his chest, and says, "It's not like that. It's got nothing to do with her."

Arthur doesn't respond, but his expression is angry and measured and conveys an unmistakable message: ' _Bullshit_.'.

"I'm serious," Cobb insists, at a loss for how to convince him and wanting nothing more than to close the physical space between them. "I wouldn't do that to you." At least he hopes he wouldn't. In retrospect, he honestly doesn't know what he'd have done if he'd realized how Arthur felt back before the inception project. He wishes he could be sure he would've kept his hands to himself—not tried to take advantage—but he honestly doesn't know.

But that's all academic now. He _didn't_ know, and nothing happened. This is now. This is just them. For once his eyes are open, and it shouldn't be this damn complicated convincing Arthur to let them have something they obviously both want.

"Last week," says Arthur. "You asked me to hook you up to the PASIV. You went back in there." ' _You wouldn't let me come with you_ ,' he might as well say but doesn't.

"I needed to be sure," says Cobb. "I needed to know it was just me inside my head."

The silence that threatens to settle between them is stretched and strained, and finally Arthur's face softens and he says, "I don't need that from you. If that's what you think. If you." He pauses and turns away, and the discomfort sits like a painful weight across his shoulders. "I'm not going anywhere unless you want me gone. You don't need to… Jesus, just. That's not how I want it, okay?"

Arthur at a loss for words is so unusual to behold that it honestly makes Cobb's head hurt. Or maybe that's his chest, stuttering slow and off-balance, but when Arthur finally looks at him again, his face is speaking in full sentences. Regret and the weighty shadow of guilt. ' _You weren't supposed to figure it out_ ,' his expression says now. ' _You weren't ever supposed to know how I felt_.'

"You know me better than that," says Cobb. Because he's not that unselfish. He's not a giver. And he knows how easy it is to take Arthur for granted. He's spent practically their whole friendship doing it. It never occurred to him that Arthur might leave over this, even if Dom never returned his affections, because it was a patent impossibility. It could never happen.

And that's a reality they're both all too aware of.

"Fine," Arthur concedes grudgingly. "So it's not some misguided ploy to make me stay. And it's not about Mal. Then what is it?"

Cobb shrugs helplessly, trying to let his eyes speak for him because he doesn't trust his words to cooperate.

"Do you really need me to say it out loud?" he asks.

"Maybe I do," says Arthur. But already the first hints of revelation are starting to brighten in his eyes.

"It's you," says Cobb. "It's just… _you_." And he shrugs again. Because Arthur always understands him implicitly—Arthur always anticipates his needs before they're fully realized—and this, needing to find the right words, it's unfamiliar territory between them.

For a slow, anxious moment Dom is terrified it won't be enough.

But Arthur nods like maybe it is. He regards Cobb with unreadable eyes and slips a hand into his pocket. It doesn't take a stroke of brilliance to figure out that he's palming his die. He doesn't take it out and roll it, but it's a reality check just the same. Cobb doesn't need to reach for his own totem. He spins it almost every day, watches it wobble and fall. He knows this isn't a dream.

"I need to take a walk," Arthur announces abruptly. Cobb watches wordlessly as he disappears down the front hall.

When he hears the soft swing and click of the door, Cobb sinks down onto the couch.

He's sitting in the same spot two hours later when Arthur comes back: waiting, because he at least needs to know they're okay; hoping, because he damn well can't help it.

He listens, quiet and anxious, as Arthur's footsteps approach via the front hall, and when he finally steps into view Cobb realizes there's a new ease in the man's shoulders. The day's tension has drained away, and in its place there's something new. Something exhilarating.

Cobb doesn't stand from the couch, but he does straighten in his seat so he can more easily meet Arthur's eyes.

"Hey," he says dumbly.

"Hey," says Arthur. "So." He approaches deceptively casually, hands stuffed in his pants pockets. "It's me, huh?" he asks, a light smile playing at one corner of his mouth.

"Come here," says Cobb. Because Arthur is moving too slowly. They've spoken six whole words to each other already, and Arthur is still clear across the room, which is too damn far away.

And it seems like a miracle when Arthur does as he says. He quickens his steps and crosses the soft living room carpet—stops directly in front of Cobb, so that Cobb has to lean further back and tilt his head up if he wants to maintain eye contact.

Of course he can't think of anything to say now that Arthur is _here_ , but words aren't currently his highest priority.

He reaches forward almost tentatively, setting his hands at Arthur's hips, his fingers curling around Arthur's slim waist. When the touch earns him no protest, he tightens his grip and gives a sudden, insistent tug that draws a startled sound from Arthur and lands him astride Dom's lap. Right where he needs to be.

"Pushy bastard," mutters Arthur. But he doesn't protest when Cobb drags him down into a kiss. Or when Cobb's hands drag Arthur flush against him. Or when Cobb untucks Arthur's shirt and slips his fingers beneath in shameless, possessive exploration.

Arthur's too busy threading his fingers through Cobb's hair and returning the kiss.

He's solid and firm beneath Cobb's hands, and he follows easily when Cobb directs him with pointed touches—shifting and pressing and maneuvering them both lengthwise across the couch until he can feel the full length of Arthur's body beneath him. He negotiates a space for himself between Arthur's legs, fabric slipping against fabric, and isn't surprised to find Arthur already as hard as he is.

They haven't stopped kissing. At this point, Cobb is thinking about giving up oxygen for good.

The friction is brilliant at this angle, vivid and maddening, and when Arthur tears his mouth away a moment later, it's for no reason but the need for air. Cobb sucks in a handful of desperate gasps himself before reclaiming Arthur's mouth.

They shouldn't be doing this here, out in the open, right in the middle of the living room for god's sake, but Cobb is having a hard time with the idea of stopping.

"Daddy?" comes a small, confused voice from all of a foot away. "What are you doing to Uncle Arthur?"

Cobb's pretty sure he's got whiplash from how quickly his head snaps up, and there's Phillipa, blinking wide sleepy eyes at him. Arthur has frozen beneath him, like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming semi, which means Cobb's the one that needs to step up and respond.

"What are you doing awake, sweetheart?" he asks, deciding it's probably better not to answer her question if he can sidestep it instead. He'll move his body into a less compromising position momentarily—just as soon as his limbs go back to responding to his commands.

"Bad dreams," says Phillipa.

Ignoring his hard-on—which is not too difficult, considering it's vanishing pretty damn quickly at both the interruption and the fact that his little girl needs him—he climbs off of Arthur. He doesn't take his eyes off Phillipa, but in his peripheral vision he sees Arthur scooting cautiously upright beside him.

"You want to tell me?" Cobb asks. She never says yes, but he'll never stop asking. There's a first time for everything.

Phillipa shakes her head no, same as she always does, and when she climbs onto the couch, Cobb opens his arms and hugs her tight.

"It's okay, sweetheart," he says. "Dreams can't hurt you. You're okay." Part of that is a lie. Of course dreams can hurt. They can hurt a whole lot more than reality, sometimes. But not here, not now, not dreams like this. Not if Dom's got any say in the matter.

She nods, and he feels the gesture against his shoulder. Has to swallow past the sudden ache in his chest. He hates that there are so damn many things he can't fix.

"Come on," he murmurs, standing and lifting her with him. "Let's get you back to bed.

He feels Arthur's eyes follow him as he carries his daughter back to her room.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

Of course, now that his ultimate objective—i.e. Arthur, in his bed, for the rest of their natural lives if possible—looks like something he can actually obtain, Cobb finds there's never time to make another move.

Arthur is out of town for a solid week only two days later, and the way he hedges and won't answer Cobb's questions about precisely what the job entails makes it pretty clear that this gig isn't quite as above-board as the rest. "Why _this_ job?" he can't help asking.

The look on Arthur's face is quietly sheepish when he answers, "Because it sounds like a challenge."

Which puts Cobb in a foul mood he can't rationalize, until he realizes he's jealous. He doesn't like the thought of Arthur out there, dodging the law and organizing shady business dealings without him. They're supposed to be a team—even though his rational brain reminds him that they haven't been _that_ kind of team in quite some time.

By the time Arthur comes back, Cobb has at least managed to put the green-eyed monster back in its cage, if not flatten it entirely.

He takes James and Phillipa with him to the airport, even though Arthur insists he doesn't need a ride home. And after the kids get their hugs, Cobb finds he can't resist. The terminal full of people and the mountain of luggage and the way James and Phillipa are clinging to Arthur's legs, none of those factors are sufficiently dissuasive. Arthur stands indulgently still, expecting a hug, and Cobb takes a kiss instead. It's fast and intense, one of his hands at the nape of Arthur's neck to tilt his head just so, and he steps back and away even before James has finished saying, "Ew, gross!"

Arthur looks dazed, and Cobb decides that's a remarkably good look for him.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

For the next couple weeks, quick kisses are all Cobb manages to steal.

There are jobs, and the kids, and then there's the heady, overwhelming weight of anticipation. Cobb knows, on some level, that they could easily find time for _something_ —something fast and hot and maybe even satisfying.

But he wants more than a quick hand job before he falls into an exhausted sleep, and he's got a feeling Arthur's on the exact same page.

Which means until the stars align just right, they simply don't have time.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

When the stars finally _do_ align, it takes the form of a birthday slumber party four houses down the block. Suzy Palmer is Phillipa's second best friend at school, and her birthday party is apparently the elementary-school event of the season.

Suzy's also got a younger brother, so James makes the party invite list by default.

Dropping them off at the door—with sleeping bags and spare pillows and brightly wrapped presents—is even harder than Dom expects. He wishes he'd brought Arthur.

The house is quiet when he completes the short walk home and steps inside. Arthur sits scribbling notes on a legal pad in the living room, a manila folder open on the couch to his left, and he smiles faintly when he raises his eyes to meet Cobb's. Their gazes lock harder than they should, and it's Dom who finally shakes free of it and heads for the kitchen.

They manage a surprisingly normal evening, forcing their way through easy conversation and dinner.

"How long do you think we have before James calls wanting to come home?" Cobb asks lightly. It could be an innocent enough question. It's not.

"I'd lay my bets around two a.m.," Arthur answers, and his expression would look like a smirk if there weren't so much warmth in the smile. "But who knows. He might make it all the way through. Phillipa's there."

It's a good point. Cobb reassesses the probabilities and decides they've got a fifty-fifty chance of a quiet night. They've certainly got the next couple hours to themselves, at least, and an empty house in the meantime. It's more opportunity than they've had in weeks.

When the tension in the air is so intense Cobb can feel his skin tingling with it—when he's nearly reached the point of just shoving Arthur down on the table and asking if he wants to fuck—Arthur stands and gives him a pointed, wordless look. Then moves down the hall.

Cobb stands and follows.

He pauses in the doorway to Arthur's room—it's not a guest room anymore, hasn't been for months, and the understated evidence of ownership makes Cobb smile. There's a constant array of work-in-progress laid carefully out across the desk, and the generic green desk lamp has been swapped out for a more traditional, wooden creation that sits on the corner of the desk. There are books here and there, leisure reading that Arthur indulges in only once in awhile, and a complicated metal hanger full of ties positioned over the closet door.

It looks like home.

Arthur is watching him, waiting with his hands in his pockets and a deliberately neutral expression on his face. Expectant. He's already discarded his jacket and tie, folded them over the back of his desk chair.

Cobb doesn't waste another moment before stepping into the room.

Arthur keeps watching him. Outwardly he looks as calm and collected as ever. Hell, maybe more so. He looks cool and relaxed, like all they're about to do is go over the groundwork for a relatively straightforward extraction or maybe their schedules for the week.

But in his eyes, Cobb sees the same barely banked embers of anticipation that are humming in his own chest.

He thinks he should maybe say something clever. ' _Fancy meeting you here_.' Or maybe, ' _Come here often_?' Something trite and clichéd and easy—to lighten things up, to recall their comfortable camaraderie from wherever it's hiding.

But his voice is caught in his throat, and comfortable camaraderie isn't really what he wants just now. What he wants is to touch. What he wants is an outlet for the heat singeing his veins, speeding his pulse, clouding his gaze. What he wants is to pin Arthur to the nearest flat surface and take everything his friend—his point man, partner, _lover, Jesus_ —has to give.

When Cobb kisses him, Arthur comes to life beneath his hands. The cool façade melts into friction and flame, and Arthur's lips part at the first light touch of Cobb's tongue. Welcoming. Eager. He presses into the kiss, mouth an open offering that Dom is all too ready to accept.

It feels like they kiss for hours, though Cobb knows in reality it's been a frantic matter of minutes. He's impatient, though. There's too damn much clothing between them, and only one thing to do about it.

His hands are clumsy on Arthur's buttons, because he damn well refuses to break the kiss if he doesn't have to. He _has_ to back off a moment later, because his own shirt has gotten tangled around Arthur's fingers, fabric constraining his movements awkwardly, and he needs to take a step back to escape. Then there are pants to deal with, but those aren't a problem for long, and then it's nothing but them. Nothing but skin and heat and the feel of pure, unadulterated Arthur beneath his hands.

He sucks a bruising kiss into Arthur's throat, and Arthur's head falls back on a moan—so far beyond conscious control that it would be funny if it weren't doing such hungry things to Cobb's insides. As it is, he's long since gone hot and hard, and he needs to know how far they're taking this.

He wants goddamn _everything_ , but the last thing he needs is to fuck this up by moving too fast.

"Talk to me," he breathes against Arthur's throat, pushing him slowly but deliberately toward the bed. He's almost surprised to have found his voice. "Tell me what we're doing here."

"Jesus, Dom," Arthur groans as the backs of his knees hit the edge of the mattress. "Now is _not_ a good time for the 'talk'. Didn't your parents explain it to you when you were, y'know, ten?"

"Fuck you," Cobb laughs, breathing in Arthur's scent then licking at the shell of his ear. "I happen to know all about the birds and the bees."

"That's a relief," says Arthur, but he sounds more breathless than amused.

Cobb gives just enough of a push to topple him and send him sprawling across the bedspread, and then he drops to his knees, crawls up the mattress until he's got Arthur all but pinned beneath him, locking him in an inescapable, deliberate stare.

"I mean it," he says, gaze flickering down to Arthur's kiss-slick lips then back to his eyes. "I need to know how far we're taking this tonight."

"You afraid you'll scare me off?" Arthur teases. But Dom doesn't answer, just quirks a meaningful eyebrow, and instead of answering the line of questioning directly, Arthur reaches for the bedside table—for the top drawer, which he pulls open, and then he reaches inside and finally comes back out with a condom and a generous supply of lube.

"Oh, Jesus," Dom breathes, and because the swell of want and heat and hunger in his chest is nearly too much, he crushes their bodies together and captures Arthur's lips in a deep, desperate kiss.

When he pulls away they're both breathing hard, but Cobb manages to say, "You sure? We can take it slow." He's pretty sure Arthur's never done this with a man before—though he'd be hard pressed to prove it.

Arthur actually laughs at that, and the sound is rich and warm and tinged dark with lust. He meets Cobb's eyes steadily and says, "When are we going to have the house to ourselves like this again? Six months? A year from now? I am _not_ waiting that long, Dom." He leans up to bite at Cobb's jaw, quick and affectionate, then smirks as he says, "Besides, you're terrible with delayed gratification. If you have to wait that long to fuck me, I'm pretty sure you'll explode."

He's not wrong.

They still take it slow. Cobb's not shy about calling the shots, and Arthur just smiles and lets him. He follows the unspoken command when Cobb urges him onto his stomach; spreads his knees wider at a guiding ghost of a touch; groans and gasps and takes everything Cobb has to give.

Cobb's attempt to keep his efforts gentle doesn't last long once he's finally _inside_ Arthur, but none of the sounds coming from Arthur's throat register remotely as complaint. Cobb's hands are leaving bruises all over Arthur's hips, but the way Arthur arches up into the touch tells him that's more than okay.

The air is a mess of moans and gasps and startled, pleasure-tinted curses, and Cobb never—goddamn _ever_ —wants to stop.

He falls asleep in Arthur's room that night, in Arthur's bed beneath the light touch of Arthur's fingers brushing circles against his skin.

He's got a feeling this heralds a trend.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

The phone doesn't ring that night, and in the morning they both go to pick James and Phillipa up from the Palmers' house.

"Was James okay?" Cobb asks Phillipa on the brief walk home, quietly enough that his son won't hear.

"Mostly," says Phillipa. "He wouldn't go to sleep unless his sleeping bag was next to mine, so I didn't get to sleep by Suzy." She sounds tired, a little bit cranky about it, but she speaks as softly as he does. She obviously doesn't want James to hear, either.

"Thanks for taking care of him," Cobb says, squeezing her hand.

She levels a look up at him that he correctly interprets as ' _duh_.'

 

\- — - — - — - — -

Weeks pass, then months. Phillipa's birthday comes and goes, with plenty of exuberant celebration, and James's sneaks right up on them too.

Cobb thinks the nightmares are waking them less—though it's hard to tell. He sleeps more soundly in Arthur's bed, which means he doesn't wander the house at night the way he used to.

But Arthur nods and agrees with him, and he knows Arthur can't be wrong. Not about this.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

Ariadne visits just after her graduation—Arthur made it to the ceremony, Cobb didn't. But she promised to stop by, and here she is in their living room, grinning as the kids tear through the hall and out the door.

She sits in the loveseat across the coffee table from where they sit on the couch, a discreet couple of feet apart. Cobb wouldn't mind sitting closer, but discretion is the better part of something that's supposed to be important, and anyway he's pretty sure snuggling in front of guests is not the politest way to break the news of their involvement.

Ariadne shifts her gaze from the door through which the whirlwind of playing children just escaped, and when her eyes settle on Arthur and Cobb a new expression paints her face. Curiosity. Confusion. The nagging tug of something she's not quite certain she sees.

"There's something different about you two," she says. The girl always was one for the direct route. Whatever the polar opposite of 'shy' is, that's Ariadne.

There's nothing blatant to give them away. Cobb's arm is slung across the back of the couch, but his hand doesn't quite reach Arthur. Arthur's whole body inclines towards Cobb's just a little—subconsciously, Dom suspects—but from where he sits at the far end of the couch, that could just be an attempt to keep his eyes on everyone at once.

Cobb is still trying to formulate an honest, cogent response when Ariadne's eyes go suddenly wide.

"Oh," she says, blinking back and forth at them like she's just had a revelation she didn't see coming.

He's not sure how she worked it out until he turns to look at Arthur, and then he almost laughs. Arthur is watching him—smiling. And his expression is the strangest combination of a self-satisfied smirk and a warm, glowing grin. It's also completely unmistakable—not to mention a little inviting—and Cobb's chest feels suddenly tight with how badly he wants to throw himself across the couch, company be damned.

No wonder Ariadne put it together so fast.

He tears his eyes from Arthur by reluctant force of will, and makes himself hold Ariadne's gaze. He's not entirely sure if he needs to say more here. How much explanation is necessary, really?

"So, um," Cobb says intelligently. "Wow. Graduation. Congratulations. What do you think you'll do now?"

It's not exactly a smooth recovery, but seriously. There's not much more he can contribute without getting into embarrassing details. Which Ariadne might enjoy, but he himself doesn't feel particularly inclined to share.

"I'm sort of overwhelmed by the options," Ariadne admits. "Even if we only look at the strictly legal job offers. Considering that inception was a top secret project, there are a shocking number of people familiar with my… impressive work experience."

"Word gets around," Arthur agrees, sounding quietly amused. Cobb wishes word didn't get around _quite_ so thoroughly, but it's the nature of the business. People talk. Personally, he blames Yusuf. Eames isn't above his suspicion either.

"How many foreign governments are courting you?" Arthur asks. He shifts in his seat, a movement Cobb catches in his peripheral vision, and when he slouches more comfortably into the couch, the back of his neck makes the barest contact with Cobb's hand.

"Six," Ariadne admits, almost sheepishly. "Plus a handful of private corporations. Including Saito's."

"Are you inclining any particular direction?" Cobb asks. He's genuinely curious. Ariadne's got the sort of mind-blowing potential the world doesn't see every day.

"I don't know yet," she says with a shrug. "I mean… I just graduated a week ago. Plus, there's this research grant. I could really get into how it all works, you know? Figure out where the rules come from. Figure out how to break them."

"Sounds dangerous," says Cobb. He feels the smile spreading across his face, and he knows damn well he's intrigued. For all their advanced technology and practical experience, there's a lot about the business of dreaming that even the best simply don't know.

"He means it sounds fun," Arthur translates helpfully. Cobb brushes his fingers deliberately across the warm skin of Arthur's neck. Arthur doesn't startle at the teasing caress.

 

\- — - — - — - — -

Later, over glasses of wine on the back porch, Ariadne asks them, "Do you miss it?"

"Miss what?" asks Cobb, even though he's got a pretty solid idea what she's asking.

"The challenge, the adventure, the constant adrenaline… You had a pretty exciting life when I met you." There's no judgment in her tone.

"No," says Cobb, and realizes only once the syllable has left his lips that Arthur spoke the same word simultaneously. They exchange a look, soft and cryptic, and then Cobb turns back to Ariadne.

"No," he repeats. "We don't miss it." And as the words leave his mouth, he realizes that the statement encompasses the brightest truth he knows.

 

\- — - — fin — - — -


End file.
